Blue is the New Green: Blue Thinking, the Gen 2 Sustainability Strategy

Blue Thinking is the antidote to Green.

It doesn’t go away and it’s not a project with a budget. It is the next generation of thinking emerging from the heart of brands embracing sustainability as business strategy and a driver for innovation. It’s not a green consumer story or marketing idea, not a single product innovation, not one change in the supply chain (but instead many), and nor is it a disconnected concept that should be applied to business because climate change has come upon us. Instead, it is transformational innovation.

The phrase ‘Blue innovation” instead of “Green” was coined by Bob Isherwood, ex Saatchi & Saatch Worldwide Creative Director, who presented at the Sustainable Brands International (SBi) conference in Miami in December. His call is to translate the burden of environmental accountability into a ‘blue ocean of opportunity’ and to make sustainability ‘irresistible’ to people.

In these times of crunched economies and broken industries that have widely exposed the limits to growth and short term planning, there seems to be some debate over how the last couple of years’ obsession with the greening of business and brands will fair up. Anxieties and assumptions that ‘sustainability’ is going to be put on the backburner until a better time further expose the disconnected way we think: like ‘green’ or ‘sustainability’ is a project or a thing that can switched on or off, on-demand.

The new wave of sustainability – Blue not Green – is strategic and opportunity driven. It is a business response to a changing economic landscape (borrowed wealth and externalized social costs are unsustainable) and to world context (planetary resources which fuel the engine of growth are under threat and commodities are increasing in price). It is also a backlash against environmental inertia and negativity; instead it celebrates inspiration and the power of brands to “ignite the power of emotion” (in Isherwood’s words) to drive innovation.

Blue Thinking doesn’t stop just because budgets are getting tight. In fact the opposite: Blue is being embedded in long-term strategic planning, and now more than ever in these transformational times.

Many of the world’s leading consumer brand Blue Thinkers were present at the Sustainable Brand International (SBi) summit, where I too was presenting some Blue thoughts from OZOlab.

The Blue Thinkers all share a particular quality: they have been moved emotionally as well as rationally by the context of our planet, to transform their business and drive innovation. Ray Anderson is a great example; he speaks passionately about the emotional shift that ignited the business transformation at Interface (the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpet)– starting with himself and moving throughout his business to include a powerful response from engineers modeling the machines that produce his materials. Ray talked of “humans overwhelming gratitude to nature” as a driver for innovation.

His story is widely quoted and his company still remains the world’s leading example of sustainability applied as a strategy and fueled by human response to environmental issues. Ray Anderson described Blue Thinking as ‘Authentic Sustainability’. He touched on the efficiency benefits of the transformation innovation his company has been undergoing for 13 years, like 93% efficiencies at the pump in the manufacturing process, and dematerialization – removing materials from his materials-based business. He also touched on systems innovation: driving innovation upstream with Dupont materials.

Lee Scott and the route of transformational innovation he put Wal-Mart on were ignited by the company’s original mission to support less privileged communities and do good. This has been translated into a program that enables emotional engagement in innovation all the way through to shop-floor employees: the Personal Sustainability Projects (PSP) established by Adam Werbach (who’s company is now a Saatchi & Saatchi owned business). Wal-Mart is using Blue Thinking to drive innovation through twelve value networks within the business: Greenhouse Gas, Sustainable Buildings, Alternative Fuels, Logistics, Waste, Packaging, China, Forest & Paper, Food, Agriculture and Seafood, Textiles, Jewelry, Electronics and Chemical Intensive Products.

The UK brand Marks & Spencer’s Blue Thinking was ignited by a small management team group who embraced environmental issues because they were exposed to global realities through their work with WWF in the UK. This small team very quickly put together “Plan A, because there’s no Plan B” and presented this powerful message to the world. Plan A is a business strategy that is building a company ready for a sustainable future. It’s a visible and demanding strategic plan; and it has put the not so long ago failing British institutional brand back on the map. The brand and its visible plan is engaging its stakeholders, including customers, in the transformational process. One year in, their ‘100 Point Plan’ to transform the business and supply chain is in full force (they are at about point 20).

Another common and important attribute of emergent Blue Thinking is its strong connection to brand strategy. ‘Blue Thinkers’ dig deep into the heart of the organization, their current role and position in the world, and their core competency and human capital, to strategically shape and define their intent and role in a sustainable world and align it with the core of their brand. It’s a brand strategy exercise with a transformational output and action plan, not just a brand engagement manifesto.

IBM’s recent communication and intent around “Smarter Planet” is an example here. IBM has identified its need to focus on global systems and infrastructure innovation to support sustainable transformation. Why? Because IBM is the leading infrastructure and systems innovator; it has the depth of research and knowledge across multiple industries to tackle some of the toughest world problems. Citing “… you don’t have to look far to see, for example, that only 30 percent of the potential electricity that is available at the energy source actually reaches the doorstep of the consumer. Or, that significant amounts of traffic congestion are caused by people circling, looking for empty parking spaces, wasting fuel” – John Kennedy, VP of Integrated Marketing Communications, highlights examples where IBM can clearly improve systems. IBM have looked at the world with a systematic lens, looked at the heart of their business, and married the two with strategic purpose. IBM’s purpose is now to make global infrastructure smarter within the frame of our planetary, social and economic challenges. Now could not be a more relevant time to be tackling systems-level challenges.

Understanding consumers, markets, leaders, and corporations, all of us are at the very beginning of economic and social transformation to a sustainable world. Blue Thinkers know they need to engage and bring their stakeholders with them in the process – their employees, customers and the communities they touch. IBM has started to ‘talk’ or communicate to their corporate customers but also individuals, states, governments, NGOs, through what they are describing as “Op-Ed” advertising – or educational advertising. Traditionally IBM only spoke to large enterprises. Today their purpose is to get all stakeholders seeing the systems challenges (and then presumable engaging IBM in the change and infrastructure).

Most brands are at the beginning of a long journey. All understand that Blue Thinking in this broken down economy is significant because business is forced to reflect on current practices and re-engineer to fit with market change. It’s a platform for intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs- change agents within supertanker companies driving change from within the organization and grass root innovators.